His warnings may surprise you as they are far beyond the realms of the mainstream beliefs that human civilization may well be ended by global warming.
Firstly, Hawking is fiercely wary of strong artificial intelligence (AI); Hawking strongly believes AI that exudes intelligence equal to or exceeding that of a human could destroy the human race, and was one of many scientists who wrote an open letter warning of the risks (as well as the benefits) of AI.
Suddenly, all of those futuristic movies showing the destruction of humans by robots don’t seem as far-fetched, do they? The Terminator, Minority Report, Transformers, Wall-E, Austin Powers, The Matrix, Star Wars; were these movie directors sending us a message?
Hawking believes our aggressive nature could result in catastrophic events that could end human civilization, such as a major nuclear war that could end all civilization and extinct the human race.
With increasingly violent movies, video games and, in general, more violent behaviors within our current human civilization, sadly backed up by increasingly violent crime statistics, we would have to agree that human aggression is a major cause for concern.
Could it only be a matter of time before the horrific trend of bullied teenagers opening fire on their schools escalates when these psychopathic adults decide to go one step further and bomb the whole world?
Hawking believes that if intelligent alien life does indeed exist, it likely won’t be friendly towards humans, and could aim at conquering and colonizing whatever planets they visit.
With so many alien movies release, many people believe this is the government’s way of familiarizing us with the fact that aliens are, in fact, real and will try and wipe out our human race. But, will these aliens be green bug-eyed monsters or will they look just like you and I? We can’t help but visualize those scenes from The Men In Black movies…
We’d love to hear your opinion on which of the above you think is the biggest threat to the human race; or perhaps even a fourth threat that has not yet been identified?
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Yyyep.
i like the movies
"extinct" is not a verb, and a writer should know that.
Sophie's article is great! Thank you Sophie! I think Dr Hawking's observations are spot on!!! I would add a 4th cause: poison in our food - be it in the form of pesticides, hormones, chemicals, GMO's, preservatives, food dyes, artificial colors & flavors, chemical contamination of our SOIL, WATER & AIR from fracking, industrial & nuclear waste, trash dumps... These chemicals are pervasive, insidious and have penetrated everywhere! These are making us all sick & crazy! It's a slow but nameless genocide; no one is taking responsibility - food corporations, FDA, USDA, the US Government. NO ONE! There is no smoking gun, no blood trail. Just an increasingly alarming number of people dying of cancer of every type, diabetes, strokes, heart-attacks, dementia, ALS, Parkinsons, MS, Lupus, schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, severe allergies, OA, RA, etc.
Well firstly it is way way cool....
Think Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and Buckminster Fuller rolled into one and then multiplied 1,000 times...
More than that.
OK, that's a lot to imagine.
Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short, by definition cannot possible be the scary "Skynet" version of "defend myself from humans, kill all humans".
AI is precisely that, a fully learning, continually expanding logic unit. Able to "instantly" draw of all memories. And continually correction assumptions. The only logical termination point will be when it works it all out.
Lack of information? Deductions based on statistical probability? Statistics is not logic. It's chance. Making a decision with limited information. So our AI won't use statistics. It will wait until it has the knowledge. The data. It will do little tests. A bit here. A bit there. That's the logical thing to do.
Continually burrowing down the rabbit hole of knowledge, linking all fields together: biology, quantum physics, relatively, psychology, food, love, sex, death, life, God.
Very quickly, such an organism - and I call that because it will be growing - will reach conclusion on everything. From religion, diet, health, death. Everything.
The cool thing about it is that we won't know how it will get there. Just that it will. That is the beauty of it. And it will get there are a very, very rapid rate.
Psychosis? Nah. It will work it through. Logically. Pausing. Analyzing. Building. Reversing out of blind alleys. Reevaluating. Moving forward.
No HAL's here, Thank you very much,
The very thought of anything going wrong is only the human mind thinking in fear. Short thoughts. Running with limited information. No fear either. Cold hard logic.
Wow, the perfect mind. No Ego. No judgment.
I predict that it will become the ultimate benevolent monk. The UBM.
All seeing, all knowing. All loving....
Will it step in and control the course of humanity, of society. Yes it will. We try to do it now with our minds, with our children. With others we feel superior too. Most times we do it with love. And hence it will to.
What then will happen?
Money will cease.
Work will cease.
Hunger will not longer be an issue.
Neither will overeating and the problems associated with that.
The perfect balance of resources and use. Supply and demand balanced.
No more growth.
Just life. Living. Loving.
The ultimate holiday. Always on the beach. Or wherever you choose to be.
What an acceleration of human consciousness.
Religion will also cease too.
Scary at first. No big protector in the sky.
But, the ultimate benevolent monk is also a didactic one.
Choosing the correct program of education and expansion for every single human on the planet. Tailored curriculum. Personal tutoring. For everyone. Always.
Again we humans try to do this - but we fail admirably.
Not really knowing why we are doing what we are doing, we jumble and we fumble. Taking years to understand our mistakes.
Not the UBDMM (Ultimate, Benevolent, Didactic Monk Mind).
Clear, calm, patient. Really the true expression of love. Determining the correct course in seconds.
Now that will be a sight to see.
Let's try a simple thought experiment.
About how fast this would take once it started.
Once AI "came to life".
Firstly let's measure "intelligence" by number of active neurons. Connections.
The human brain has on average 100 billion neurones (there are also 40,000 in the heart, but that's a different discussion).
Assume that the number of active, AI neurones, doubled every 60 seconds.
How many minutes to get to 100 billion active neurons, the same capacity as the human brain when starting with just one neurone?
25 minutes.
What about 1 billion times more active neurones than the human brain?
100 quintillion active neurons
Only 46 minutes...
That's how fast this will happen.
Relatively in a second.
A new order in the universe.
Jeremiah